Mindoir Rose
by Arcana Mortis
Summary: The origins story for Rose Shepard of Shepard's Birthday. When the Mindoir colony is wiped out, Commander Steven Hackett finds himself responsible for the care of the sole survivor. Shepard/Hackett slowmance.


Chapter 1

The air smelled of rancid meat, fire and death, and over everything there was the cloying sweetness of Mindoir's famous roses.

Commander Steven Hackett stared at the destruction around him. The buildings had been a mix of wood and prefab plastics – the wood had burned, the plastics only scorched. The place was quiet, the kind of quiet you'd expect of a dead colony.

"Slavers?" Duvarre asked, stopping beside him, her rifle at the ready.

Hackett sighed.

"Seems likely. If it was raiders, there would be more corpses. Fan out. There may be survivors." The two squads of marines he'd brought fanned out among the ruined buildings. They were wary still. Hackett could have told them not to worry; if the attack had been raiders they would have known immediately and slavers…well, with slavers they would have known immediately too. The screaming was generally a clue.

Hackett walked down the middle of what used to be the main street. It had been a year since the SSV _Scheherazade_'s last visit to Mindoir, although other ships had stopped here in the meantime. The Alliance tried to have at least one visit a month, although some of the smaller colonies had had to make do with less. Not Mindoir, though. Every captain on colony duty _dreamed_ of being the man who finally caught the Elders of Mindoir red-handed selling slaves to the batarians.

Hackett glanced at the corpses nailed to the huge doors of the Fatherhouse. The Elders wouldn't be selling any more slaves now, that was for damn sure. From the smell, he'd guess that most of the dead were in there. He'd send the marines in. They had helmets and filtration systems. All he had was a uniform and a reputation to uphold.

He walked past the building, and froze when he heard a voice. Female, didn't seem to be coherent, coming from…_there_. A moment later he was falling to his knees beside a girl, young and naked and covered in blood. Her one hand lay limply on her belly and, when he moved it, he saw the slowly seeping wound in her abdomen.

"Shit," he said, and pinged the _Scheherazade_.

"Hackett," the captain came back. "You find something?"

"One survivor so far, sir. Female, young. She's been gut-shot. From the smell I'd say ten, twelve hours ago. Consistent with signs on the rest of the colony."

"I'm sending Bauer in a screamer. Stay with her, Hackett. I want to know who did this."

Hackett's hands had been busy while he spoke, working medigel into the wound as gently as he could. From the girl's panting whimpers, that clearly wasn't gently enough. There was no time to sterilize the wound and nothing to do it with if there had been, but the stuff was supposed to be antiseptic, wasn't it? He updated the team as soon as the captain got off the line, waving away offers of assistance, telling them to get on with it. Nobody wanted to spend any more time in a place like this than they absolutely had to.

"I'm sorry," he said, lifting her head so he could put his canteen to her lips so she could drink. "I know it hurts, but we're taking you up to the ship. You're going to be okay. Do you have a name, honey?"

"Rose," she breathed, and he felt like an idiot.

Of course her name was Rose. They were _all_ named Rose. Mindoir roses, they were called in the trade, the most expensive human slaves on the market, and there was nothing anyone could do because nobody could ever _prove_ that the girls were sold by their own people.

"I'm Commander Hackett," he said. "You can call me Steven."

"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked. Her voice was still quiet, but the despair in it hit him in the chest like a fist.

"No. No, I'm not. Nobody's going to kill you."

"Are you going to sell me?" she persisted.

"No. I'm with the Alliance. We don't _sell_ people."

She breathed a sigh of relief and her eyes fluttered closed. She was a true Mindoir rose, he noted, bottle-green eyes and hair the colour of red wine, and her skin was porcelain-fine. They'd engineered for beauty before colonizing, and that should have tipped someone off right off the bat.

"Can you…please. There's a box…."

"Where is it?"

Her bloody hand pointed at a house, not far from where she still lay in the dirt. He could see drag marks, now that he looked, and the kind of blood trail left by wounded dragging themselves along. He'd seen that more than enough times, too.

"House," she whispered. "Third house. My room, under the floor. You'll know it when you see it."

Finding the house was easy. Finding her room was easy too; it was the one with the bare cot and no door, plain and unadorned. Finding the box she mentioned, however, was slightly more difficult. He ended up having to use his omnitool to scan the floor before he found it, and by then he could hear the telltale shriek of a combat screamer incoming, so he just shattered the planking with a kick and hoped for the best. Mercifully, the box didn't break, and he pulled it out and ran back to where the girl was still lying in the dirt. She grabbed onto his hand as the screamer became deafening, and then there was the crash as it landed.

"It's okay," he told her as the combat drop ship's engines shrieked their way to silence. "It's just the doctor."

She stared wide-eyed at him.

"D-doctor?"

"An _Alliance_ doctor," Hackett said firmly. _And what sick fuck had been calling himself a doctor on this pisshole, that she looks like that at the mention of the word?_ "You'll be safe now, Rose, I promise."

She looked doubtful, but she let go of his hand so he could stand, still clutching the flat box in his hands.

Major Bauer came trotting out of the dust storm with a floater at his side, and clapped Hackett on the shoulder.

"Applied medigel already? Good, good. Come along then, miss," he said, and bent to pick her up.

She screamed and tried to fight but, after only a moment's hesitation, the big man heaved her onto the floater anyway. Only when he stepped away did she stop screaming, and sobbed breathlessly instead.

"It's going to be all right, miss," Bauer said quietly, and started the floater moving.

Rose's hand shot out faster than Hackett would have believed and clamped on his wrist.

"Please, don't let them hurt me…"

"Nobody's going to hurt you, honey," he said.

Bauer looked at her hand clamped around Hackett's wrist and raised his comm to his mouth.

"Commander Hackett is escorting the survivor to the ship," he said. "Finish your sweep, get a tally on the corpses and rendezvous back on the ship."

"I should-"

"You should follow my orders, Commander, or did you get promoted while I wasn't looking?" It was the same tone that then-Sergeant Bauer used on new recruits, and it worked on new commanders too, apparently, because Hackett found himself nodding silently and walking next to the floater, the girl still clinging to his hand.

The screamer was still smoking by the time they got in, strapping Rose and her floater securely to the floor before strapping themselves in equally securely.

"I'm right here," Steven said, his voice as soothing as he could make it, when the girl's weary eyes opened to look for him.

"Can't move," she said.

"We're strapped in for the ascent. It's going to be rough," he said.

And then there was no more talking, because the screamer's tiny eezo core started up and they were rocketing into the sky at an insane speed. The wind screamed around the hull and they were briefly flattened against their seats as gravity protested, but then the grav plating adjusted and it became a bearable, if bumpy, ride. Hackett grinned with the exhilaration screamer rides always brought, and across from him, he could see Bauer doing the same. The combat drop pods were incredibly popular among the combat classes, both for their speed and durability and the inevitable morale boost. Well, boost for the Alliance. Pretty much the opposite for their enemies. Merc units had been known to break the moment they heard screamers incoming, and someone had once told Hackett that human mercs thought of them as banshees.

Which was just downright _cool_. And he'd had far too few opportunities to ride a screamer lately.

A few minutes later they shuddered to a stop, and Hackett felt the tethers attach with a thump that rattled his bones. They were maneuvered into the pod's dock and, moments later, the door irised open.

Hackett helped Bauer with the girl first.

"Out like a light, poor kid. Go report to the Old Man. He'll be wanting to hear everything."

"I should change first," Hackett said, glancing down at his soiled BDUs.

"Your funeral," Bauer said, trundling off.

Moments later the captain's yeoman skidded to a stop in front of him.

"Lieutenant Perry. What can I do for you?"

The girl blushed to the roots of her bright red hair.

"Captain says to get your ass into his office on the double or he's going to see if he can reinstate corporal punishment, sir!" She was still blushing, but at least she'd gotten the words out. The _first_ time Harkness had sent her with a message to someone, scuttlebutt had it that she'd stammered so much she couldn't say a damn thing.

"I'm on my way," he told her, and marched up to the captain's office. One level up – faster to climb an access ladder than wait for one of those godforsaken elevators – and a short straight sprint to the captain's door. It opened at his touch.

"Hackett," the Old Man grumbled. "took you long enough."

"Forty-five seconds since that poor child they assigned you told me you were looking for me," Hackett said, dropping into the seat across from Harkness uninvited. "That's not bad."

"From the screamer docks?" Harkness chuckled. "You used the access ladders, didn't you?"

"Not a big fan of being whipped, sir," Hackett replied.

"You know Maintenance is going to complain about people dirtying their precious emergency routes, right?"

Hackett shrugged.

"Perry seems to be getting better. Stopped stuttering so much. That's something."

"I keep having to tell her not to be so damn terrified. How that kid ever made it through Basic is something I will never understand."

"If you'd ever seen her in hand-to-hand, you'd understand. She's like a fucking mongoose, sir. Fast and _vicious_. If she didn't weigh sixty pounds soaking wet, I'd give her good odds against a krogan."

"Hmm. So." And they both sat more upright as they came to business. "Mindoir. How bad was it?"

"Pretty damn bad, sir. From what I've seen, the colony's dead. The squad is doing a body count now. I'll check with our survivor later but from what I saw I think the slavers spent a few weeks there before taking off."

Harkness quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Oh? How so?"

"For one thing, sir, the degree of corruption on the bodies I saw say two, maybe three weeks dead, but the girl is still alive, shot maybe ten hours ago. Some of the buildings were burned and cold, some were still smoking. This wasn't a hit-and-run, sir. They came, and they _stayed_, and then they left."

"Just before we arrived."

"Suspicious."

"Exactly."

"This needs to be investigated, but – and this stays between you and me – I'm not sorry that colony was wiped. The place was a stain on the Alliance's reputation," Harkness said coldly. "And at least we know they won't be selling anymore roses."

"That's one way of looking at it."

"You don't agree?"

"Sir, I've never approved of what happened on Mindoir any more than you did, but still…an entire colony wiped out? That's not going to do anything for our reputation either. Not to mention that…well, I didn't see any women there. I don't think they killed the women." Hackett said grimly.

"Well, they wouldn't, would they? Roses are fucking valuable merchandise," Harkness said with a sneer.

"Exactly. So those women…they're still out there, sir."

"Point, Commander," Harkness said grimly. "I'm still not sorry those bastards are dead. Meet me in the officer's lounge when you're clean. You look like a man who could use a drink."

"Sir," Hackett acknowledged, and got to his feet.

"And that?" Harkness glanced at the box was still carrying.

"Apparently something important to the survivor. She tried to drag herself to it while she was still mobile."

Harkness nodded.

"Well, keep it safe, the kid's already lost-" Harkness' mouth snapped shut at the sound of a scream, high and pure as fear, and they both shot to their feet.

"That come from Medical?" Harkness asked.

"Yeah." Hackett took a moment to set the box on Harkness' table before following him out the door and to the medbay at a fast walk. _Officers never run. It's never a good sign when officers run_. Something he learned when he was enlisted, something that had stayed with him since.

The girl screamed twice more before they reached the medbay, and when they got there she was backed into a corner, arms around her face, shielding herself from the two junior medics. One had a syringe, the other held a standard white hospital gown.

Bauer was leaning against the wall, one hand failing to staunch the bleeding from his nose, the other on his crotch, and what Hackett could see of his face looked _deeply_ unhappy.

The girl screamed again. Harkness looked at him and shrugged. _Ah_. _Is now really the time for one of your tests, John?_ Hackett thought, but he didn't say it aloud.

"What the _Hell_ is going on here?" Hackett asked, and the girl's mouth shut with a snap, and she looked up at him wide-eyed.

And then there was a scramble and if he hadn't known better he'd have said she'd teleported, because the next moment she was on her knees in front of him, wrapping her arms around his leg.

"You said you wouldn't sell me, please, I'll be good, I'll please you, I can make you happy," she sobbed, and her hands started working on his trousers while he stared at her, aghast. "You'll see, I'll do anything you want, only _please_ don't sell me, I don't want to be-"

Hackett got tired of trying to deflect her hands and grabbed them instead, going to his knees to put his eyes level with hers.

"Don't do that, Rose. You don't need to do that anymore," he said.

She stared at him wide-eyed, tears still running down her face. Someone had cleaned her while she was under, and her red hair fell into her face and stuck to the tears.

"Please," she said softly. "Please, I don't want to be sold."

He looked past her at the two young servicemen, who looked as though they were just as puzzled as he was.

"Who said you were going to be sold, Rose?"

She glanced fearfully over her shoulder, at the young men, then Bauer.

"They tried to put me in a Showing Gown," she whispered. "And the needle…"

Hackett glanced at the robe, the needle. The medbay with not a single woman in sight.

_Oh, God._

"Rose, this is an Alliance ship. We don't trade in slaves. Nobody is going to sell you, all right?"

"But the _gown_!"

"It's a standard issue hospital gown. People wear it when they're sick. Maybe we can get you something else?"

"You mean…clothes? Like yours?"

He looked down at his uniform, still dirty from the wreckage of Mindoir, with her blood soaking his knees. He didn't see much to be impressed with.

"Not…exactly like mine, but we'll find something. Serviceman Morgan," he said, looking up at the medic with the gown. "Ask Yeoman Perry if she can spare something for our guest. Something soft, I think."

Morgan set off at a run.

Rose lifted her eyes to glance at the captain. He smiled at her, and she smiled hesitantly back.

"Hackett, I think you'd better stay. We'll talk later," he said, and went into a brief huddle with Bauer, who seemed to have recovered the ability to speak.

Harkness was no sooner gone than Morgan reappeared, with Perry in tow. The tiny lieutenant was carrying a small bundle of clothes, and went to her knees in front of Rose with a sweet smile.

"Well, hello there, little sister," she said, and kissed the girl's forehead. "Aren't you a _beauty_?"

Hackett stared as Perry helped the girl to her feet and dressed her quickly and efficiently, tucked her in the hospital bed and gave her a tray of rations.

"I can't possibly eat all this," she said, at the food. "I'll get fat!"

"I doubt it," Hackett said in his driest voice. Nobody with eyes could miss the sharp edges of her cheekbones or the way her shoulder blades had poked through her skin sharp as knives. "You're nothing but skin and bones right now. Eat."

"All of it?" she asked in dismay, looking from him to Perry and back.

"As much as you can manage," Bauer said. "We've sealed and cleaned the wound, now we have to get your systems restarted. This is just a half-portion, just to test the waters."

"A half-portion? How do you people not get fat?"

"Hard work," said Perry, and tucked a strand of hair behind Rose's ear. "Eat, dear one. You need it."

She only ate half of the food before beginning to nod off, and soon she was asleep. Perry stroked her hair and kissed her forehead again, and turned to Hackett.

He pointed at the doorway and she and Bauer both followed him.

"Is she really your sister?" Bauer asked immediately.

"Probably a cousin, sir. My mother was a rose, but she was sold virgin so I disn't have any siblings back there. This one looks like her, though, around the eyes and nose, so she may be a related breeding line. It doesn't matter, sir. The women of Mindoir are all sisters. It was a shock, seeing her, though…I knew we were over Mindoir, I knew you'd found a survivor, but…"

"Sometimes it's hard to put the pieces together. Your mother, is she…?"

"She's on Elysium with my father. He bought her when she was…fifteen? Sixteen? He wasn't much older; he took her to the first Alliance colony he found and told her she was free now." Perry laughed. "At first she didn't understand, then she cried and made him stay. They got married when she was twenty."

She fixed Hackett with a stare that made him squirm.

"She's going to fixate on you for a time, sir. These girls…they don't really understand anything. About the world, I mean. And the first time a man shows up who doesn't just…take what he wants…they fall hard. So you should be careful."

"I doubt I'll be seeing much of her, Lieutenant," Hackett said stiffly.

She looked appalled, but didn't say anything.

Bauer noticed. Of course, Bauer noticed everything.

"Spit it out, Lieutenant."

She took a deep breath, blushing again.

"I think…from what I've…learned over the years…I think it would be a really, _really_ bad idea if Commander Hackett started avoiding her. But look. My mother runs a clinic for escaped slaves on Elysium. A place of safety. She knows a _lot_ about what happened to that girl in there. I can send her a letter, ask her professional opinion. And…it may not be a bad idea to take her there. To my mother, I mean. She has this organization – _Petals_, she calls it. They rehabilitate girls like Rose."

"Give me your mother's contact details," Bauer said gruffly. "I'll get in touch with her, see what we can do. As for sending her to your mother – you and your mother may be the girl's only living family, so I don't anticipate any problems. Now, Commander Hackett, you're going to clean yourself up and go have a few drinks. Perry, get me your mother's number and then I'm sure the Old Man wants a word or two with you. Probably has something he needs doing."

Dismissed, Hackett left the girl sleeping off pain and medication and went to change. As he did, he felt a smile tug at his mouth. He was still sickened by what he'd seen, and he'd probably have nightmares, but…but he'd done some good today. He'd done a good thing.


End file.
